(Our theater has electric recliner-style chairs. They’re very nice, but they are often broken by guests who mistreat them, and so we’re constantly having to fix them. I’m returning from my lunch break, when I see an elderly couple confronting a petite, teenaged coworker of mine. Despite being in their 70s, the husband is HUGE and looks like he could easily overpower everyone there.)

Wife: “My husband is usually a peaceful man! But you’ve pushed him, and now he needs closure and needs you to pay!”

Husband:*fuming* “I’m gonna have someone’s head!”

Coworker: “I’m sorry… What is the issue?”

Wife: “You know what it is!”

Coworker: “I apologize, ma’am. Let me call a manag—”

Wife:*interrupting* “YOU KNOW WHAT YOU DID!”

(I rush over and get a manager, who approaches them. I hear the husband and wife screaming on and off for the next five minutes, before they leave, making sure to announce loudly they’re “never” coming back to this theater, and telling every… single… person they can that we’re “cruel” and “worthless” thieves.)

Manager:*walking up to me* “Well… that was interesting…”

Me: “What was going on?”

Manager: “Someone must have broken one of the seats in the screening before those customers, because his seat was stuck permanently reclined, and it hurt his back trying to lay down in it.”

Me: “Oh, were there no other seats that he could switch to? Why didn’t they just have someone come in to fix the chair?”

Manager: “That’s the thing. I just checked, and they were the ONLY ones there. There was literally about 100 empty seats around them… He just decided that he wouldn’t switch seats, and then got mad because the one seat he picked happened to be the one broken one.”

Me: “And that’s our fault, somehow?”

Manager: “Sadly, that’s not even in the top-five of dumbest thing we’ve been blamed for by angry guests this week…”

(My mom and I are going to the movies. We always go to the same theater, around the same time, because we know the matinee times. Unbeknownst to us, the theater was recently bought out. The new owner limited the matinee times and changed ticket prices, as well as now charging tax for concessions. It’s a slow day, so at the moment you purchase tickets from concessions.)

Mom: “No, no, we said we were going to see [Movie] and we’re going to see it. Whatever, here’s the money. We’re not getting any popcorn.”

(Mom pays the red-faced cashier and we get our tickets and go to our theater. When we sit down I look at my mom. Note that I’m a cashier at a fast food restaurant.)

Me: “I can’t believe you talked to her like that.”

Mom: “What do you mean?”

Me: “It’s not her fault that they changed anything and you yelled at her! If someone talked to me like that at work I would hate them! I guarantee that right now she’s rolling her eyes with her co-workers at the mean customer she just had.”

Mom: “I didn’t yell at her…”

Me: “Yeah, you did. You were incredibly rude. And I’m going back and getting myself a soda. If you hadn’t been so rude to her, I was going to offer to buy your snacks.”

(I grab my purse and storm out of the theater, feeling pretty vexed by my mother, who I usually view as one of the most awesome people in the world. I head back to concessions and to the same girl.)

Me: “Can I get a medium Dr. Pepper?”

Cashier: “No problem.”

Me: “And I’m really sorry for the way that my mom acted…”

Cashier: “It’s fine. I’ve been getting that a lot lately. Your total is [price that’s different from what I’m used to].”

Me: “Oh, man, they’re charging tax now, too? What jerks! People must be yelling at you all the time.”